The Plan

If you had a year to explore a question, learn something, build something or go somewhere would you abandon you life to try it?

I gave myself permission to try something. I wanted to learn and do something different with my life for a year and left my teaching job, calling the time a sabbatical because it sounds socially acceptable. What I really felt was that I was taking a year with no specific destination- so I tried creating one.

The fabricated destination and plan did not happen.

Something else did.

I have been at this little experiment of mine now for almost a year and have ended up in a very different place.

Now I am a mother.

I wanted to learn and at the time could not iterate more specifically what I wanted to learn. So, I believe that lessons have been placed in front of me.

What is more educational than parenthood? I will chronicle and share some of my adventures and lessons… May 2015

The original plan as of May 2014: (now an amusing joke): “I have just over a year. Much of it is and will remain unplanned. The best things happen that way. May & June 2014: Colombia; July 2014: Yoga Certification course; September 2014: Mexico; December 2014: India; January 2015: Thailand. To be updated whenever the plan changes:”

SO THE PLAN CHANGED: (January 2015). Being 7 months pregnant has definitely changed things… But here is the story.

I did my yoga certification and on the day before graduation found out that I was pregnant. That news will always change things. 2 days later I also learned that my mom had been attacked and kidnapped by her estranged husband. These two dramatic events prompted a fundamental change in any plan I thought I had. I spent well over a month in the USA with my mom and then returned to Colombia to begin a new version of my life.

I moved to a new city, Medellin. I opened a yoga studio and healing space, and have begun to weave a community of precious-hearted beautiful people all whom are on their own paths and for various reasons have been drawn together.

In the last 6 weeks I have set down roots, deep and strong enough, I hope to weather any storm that may come. I have a full house of passionately living people, I have a healthy space to practice yoga and life and a growing community.

In one month my mom will retire, leave her home and her incarcerated husband to come live with us in Colombia. We will practice and teach yoga and meditation together. My father will come shortly there after. We will be together as a family for the birth of my daughter. This is a healing act because my family has not spent more than 5 days together since I was 3 years old. My mother will have a space to recreate her life in the later stages and renew her commitment to her priorities. We will be a family.

So that is the new plan. To become a mother. To run a small business; to live each moment with focused intention; to attract like-minded people to share in this journey and to bring joy and healing to those we encounter along the way.

Food is still and always will be an essential part of this. Instead of working on farms around the world, we are turning the front yard into our own mini-garden. Instead of studying cuisine in some of the most romantic places of the world and following in the footsteps of Elizabeth Gilbert down a well-trodden path of Food, Prayer & Love, we are making our own path in Colombia. Rooted not floating. Finding meaning in being in one place. My kitchen, my garden any my yoga space will provide the lessons ahead.

With this soft plan I started, but something more incredible happened. I opened a space in my life. And the universe rushed in to fill it. I got a child, a new direction, a community and more than I can even iterate. My identity he’s been remade.

With the openness, I receive more than I could ever plan or organize. People literally knock on my door and bring gifts of collaboration, information, passion and dreams.